212 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



ON THE WINTER SINGING OF THE SONG-THRUSH 

 {TURD US MUSIC US) . 



By W. Warde Fowlee, M.A. 



Towards the middle of last November I was struck, like 

 many others, by the vociferous singing of Song-Thrushes ; they 

 were unusually numerous, and almost every individual seemed 

 to be uttering some kind of song, and continuing it more or less 

 from early morning, when the voicefulness was at its highest 

 point, till sunset, and even later. At the same time it happened 

 that there came into my hands an interesting work on the song 

 of birds by Dr. V. Hacker, of Freiburg-in-Breisgau, in which I 

 found some useful remarks on the autumn and winter singing of 

 birds, which seemed to point to the desirability of further close 

 observation out of doors. I was then living close to the Park 

 at Oxford, and was in the habit of going out daily before break- 

 fast, as well as of crossing the Park two or three times a day on 

 my way to and from college ; and I determined to note down 

 each day throughout the winter what birds I heard singing, 

 and especially to record the voicefulness of the Song-Thrush, 

 This I continued to do until the middle of March. My chief 

 object was to ascertain, if possible, whether the great outburst 

 of song which I had noticed was psychologically connected with 

 the breeding season, or should be reckoned by itself as merely 

 the expression of bodily comfort, arising from abundance of food 

 and a mild temperature.* I wished to know how long it would 

 go on without interruption — whether there would be any consider- 

 able break before the true spring song began, and, if so, how far 

 it would be due to a change of temperature. I did not, as will 

 be seen, arrive at any very definite conclusions, but I hope to be 



■■= On this disputed question see Darwin, ' Descent of Man,' ii., 51 foil. ; 

 Wallace, ' Darwinism,' 384 ; W. P. Pycraft, ' Story of Bird-life,' p. 93, foil. ; 

 the writer's ' Summer Studies,' ch. vi; and references to German views will 

 be found in Hiicker. ' Dev Gesang der Vogel,' p. 29, foil. 



